A palletizer or palletiser is a machine which provides automatic means for stacking cases of goods or products on to a pallet

Pallet

A pallet , sometimes called a skid, is a flat transport structure that supports goods in a stable fashion while being lifted by a forklift, pallet jack, front loader or other jacking device. A pallet is the structural foundation of a unit load which allows handling and storage efficiencies...

. The first palletizer was designed, built, and installed in 1948 by a company formerly known as Lamson Corp. There are specific types of palletizers including the row-forming which were introduced in the early 1950s. In row-forming palletizing applications loads are arranged on a row forming area and then moved onto an different area where layer forming takes place. This process repeats until a full layer of goods and products are configured to be placed on a pallet.

The in-line palletizer was developed in the 1970s when higher speeds were needed for palletizing. This palletizer type utilizes a continuous motion flow divider that guides the goods into the desired area on the layer forming platform.

Robotic

Industrial robot

An industrial robot is defined by ISO as an automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose manipulator programmable in three or more axes...

palletizers were introduced in the early 1980s and have an end of arm tool (end effector) to grab the product from a conveyor or layer table and position it onto a pallet. Both conventional and robotic palletizers can receive product at a high elevation (typically between 84” - 2.13m to 124” - 3.15m) or low “floor level” elevation (typically at 30” - 0.76m to 36” - 0.91m).